In sausage production, the sausage meat is discharged via a stuffing tube or a nozzle, respectively, into a sausage casing or an intestine. In this, so-called casing sticks are located on the stuffing tube. For drawing the casing sticks onto the stuffing tube, one or a plurality of stuffing tubes are moved axially or radially or combined axially/radially from a working position to in a draw-on position. This motion causes oscillations or position inaccuracies of the nozzle when the draw-on position is reached in relation to the center of the casing stick to be mounted on the stuffing tube. A complication additionally arises that the stuffing tubes can be bent easily, in particular long stuffing tubes with small diameters.
A centering prism applied to one side of the nozzle is used in practice, which is used primarily for calming the nozzle oscillations when the nozzles are long. This centering prism is pivotably mounted. During the drawing-on process, the face side of the casing stick pushes this prism away, so that it can fold away. When the stuffing tube is moved back to the production position, the centering prism can be returned to its initial position. Concentric alignment of the nozzle to the casing stick to be drawn on is a prerequisite for a secure draw-on process because the difference between the outer diameter of the stuffing tube and the inner diameter of the casing stick is often very little.
The nozzle must always securely abut on the centering prism, so that the same centering position is always attained. The disadvantage of this is that the nozzle must be moved beyond the draw-on position for it to abut securely on the centering prism. This centering prism is responsible for the open end of the stuffing tube to be positioned centrally to the casing stick to be drawn on. The single-sided nozzle centering device must be adjusted and positioned by the operator precisely to the diameter of the stuffing tube so that fail-safe operation can be warranted.
A method and a device are already known from DE 42 23 128 A1 for the separation and mounting of a casing stick on a stuffing tube.